More Fool Me
by SChimes
Summary: It's April first, and Rusty might be a little overenthusiastic about that, much to Sharon's growing exasperation.
1. Chapter 1

**You guys know how this goes by now: I couldn't help myself, this was supposed to be a brief one-shot, I'm incapable of grasping the concept of 'brevity'. ;) I've been sitting on this story for about three months, since it first occurred to me in January, and so I'm thrilled that April's Fools Day finally rolled around, and with it the opportunity to post this!  
**

**Hope everyone survived today unscathed. Personally, I've learned to never ever read the news again on April 1st. I no longer know what's going on in the world. Are Pokemons on the loose? Did Paris really ban cars? Is Paris even real? What are cars? Who even knows anymore! **

**More Fool Me**

The alarm on her phone sounded even more shrill than usual that morning. Eyes still closed, Sharon reached a hand over to the nightstand, and in a well-practiced motion slid her finger across the screen to make it stop.

It didn't.

She did the same again.

Still the loud droning threatened to pierce her eardrums.

With a sigh, she blinked awake and sat up on one elbow, picking up the phone to turn it off properly.

Instead of the usual alarm display, a bunch of numbers were floating on the screen.

Sharon paused, baffled. She closed her eyes for a second and opened them again but nope, the numbers were still there. She grabbed her glasses and took another peak – still there.

"What…?"

And the alarm sound was still going on too, impossibly loud now, and Sharon just wanted to make it stop. She tried tapping the screen, then pressing the home button. Nothing.

Then she accidentally tapped one of the floating numbers, and her phone immediately emitted a 'wrong' buzz tone and a brief vibration. The original numbers disappeared, to be replaced by _other_ numbers, still floating around randomly on her phone.

What. The hell.

She tapped another arbitrary number, in a different corner of the screen, and the same thing occurred again, a new set of numbers appearing and oh, the _noise!_ Frantically, she pushed the off button about five times in a row but _nothing was happening_ dear God, was her phone possessed or something?

Did she need to call the bomb squad?

Cautiously, she perched the phone back on the nightstand.

This wasn't good. The damn thing was only growing louder, at this point nearly giving her a migraine, and okay, she was pretty sure that no one nefarious could've done anything to it, but then, what…?

After the numbers reset again she tapped another random digit, and when instead of the usual 'wrong' buzz and subsequent resetting, the digit just disappeared innocuously, it dawned on Sharon that there must be a right sequence to press. It only took her a few more seconds to figure out that it had to be increasing order of magnitude, and with a quick prayer she pressed the next lowest number and joy! It disappeared uneventfully as well.

Ha! Take _that_, nasty phone demons.

She quickly pressed the remaining numbers, feeling increasing satisfaction (despite the painful throbbing of her eardrums) as they vanished one by one, until she finally tapped the highest one and the screen went blank for a second. Aha!

Having achieved victory, she was ready to relax back against the pillow with a self-satisfied hum, when a new display appeared on the screen:

_117 ˸ 3_

Wait – what?

Oh come on!

With a groan, Sharon typed '39' on the number pad, and thankfully the screen went blank again. She glared at it warningly, because the godawful noise still wasn't stopping… and then a bunch of rectangles showed up, and she pressed the phone face down against the blanket.

"_Rusty_‼"

* * *

He was awake when she barreled into his room (screaming phone in tow), and he'd have been wearing the most innocent expression, if not for his complete inability to contain the way his lips keep wanting to curl at the corners.

"What did you do to my phone?" she demanded, and Rusty lost the battle for composure, grinning fully now:

"Well, I thought that –"

"I don't care." She tossed the phone on top of his blanket almost desperately. "Fix it! And for the love of _God_, make the noise stop!" She glared over her shoulder as she was about to march out of the room. "This is not funny."

Rusty was snickering loudly.

Sharon's eyes narrowed. "You and that phone both better be perfectly silent when you come out into the living room."

* * *

Which they were, though the boy was still looking way too proud of himself and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Sharon was halfway through her second mug of coffee, because it was that kind of day. She looked at him over the rim of her cup, and tried to convey her profound disgruntlement. "What. Did you do."

He shrugged innocently. "I thought you might enjoy a little upgrade in your alarm. You know, in case you have trouble waking up in the mornings."

"I do not have trouble waking up in the mornings! And would you quit it with that grin, this isn't funny!"

And there he went, laughing again.

"Rusty!"

"It's _April first_, Sharon," he told her, as if that explained everything. "It's supposed to be like this. And just FYI, it _is_ funny." His grin only widened. "You should've seen your face when you came into my room."

Sharon's eyes narrowed again. "Do you wish to be grounded for the remaining twenty-nine days of April?"

But the boy looked unconcerned. "You're not allowed to ground me for harmless pranks. It's like, the rules."

"I _write_ the rules," she grumbled dryly. "Go get your schoolbag, I don't want to be late. And give me my phone back please," she demanded grumpily. As Rusty handed it over, she gave him a suspicious look: "You didn't do anything else to it, did you?"

He laughed at the way she was holding the phone, between two fingers, as though it were radioactive. "No. _No_," at her warning glare he held up his hands, "just the alarm app. And I uninstalled it, don't worry. Although it's got like, really high ratings and everything, you might wanna give it a try anyw –"

"Schoolbag. Now."

* * *

Unbelievably, he kept up the self-satisfied smirk all the way to the school gates, and none of the dry sideways glances she shot him on the way did anything at all to dissuade him. 'April Fools'… Sharon did a mental eye roll.

"I better not get a phone call from your teachers because you got in trouble for any pranks today," she warned when he was about to get out of the car.

"You won't," Rusty assured her, unworriedly. "Have a nice day at work!"

"Thank y–"

Wait. When did he ever wish her a nice day at work?

"Rusty!" She stopped him right before he could close the car door, and leaned to the right a little to get a better view of his face. "You didn't put anything else on my phone, correct?"

And there was that all-too-amused grin; she didn't know whether to laugh or strangle him.

"I didn't put anything else on it, Sharon," he reiterated.

"And you uninstalled that…alarm thing?"

"Yup."

She still had a feeling that her line of questioning was missing something, but it was seven forty-three and Rusty had to get inside by seven forty-five and she had to get to work. So she let him off the hook and put the car into reverse, her last glimpse of him showing the boy waving briefly to her before walking through the gate, the same smug grin on his face.

* * *

It was almost two hours later that she realized what she'd neglected to ask.

" –and while organ trafficking _is_ a federal concern, we have no evidence at the moment to indicate that that's what's going on with our three victims, so this jurisdictional debate is unwarranted." Sharon crossed her arms, leaning one leg against the conference room table. "Those three bodies in the morgue are the responsibility of the LAPD."

"You are, of course, welcome to assist, Special Agent Morris," Chief Taylor added in his saccharine tone. "But we won't be releasing the bodies to the FBI."

"This has been an open federal investigation for the past eighteen months," the agent retorted indignantly, "and your victims fit the pattern of another _eight_ in the last two years, spread across _five different states_! Of course this falls under federal jurisdiction! And if you don't let us connect the dots here, not only will you not be able to find the people responsible for this, but you'll be actively obstructing –"

A duck started quacking.

For a moment there was a perplexed pause from everyone. Sharon looked around for the source, but _where_ would she even start looking for a _duck_ in the middle of her conference room?

Then she realized the sound was coming from her pocket.

As everyone else's eyes zeroed in on her as well, she cautiously pulled the phone out, feeling her cheeks starting to burn.

She had an incoming call from the DA's office.

And it was quacking.

She was going to kill Rusty.

* * *

Of course he couldn't wait until school was out; at ten-fifty – right after his English class – her phone chimed with a text message. (and thankfully, its normal message alert sound – which was probably due to the fact that following the quacking incident, she had taken the phone to Buzz and begged him to check it for _everything_.)

Rusty was obviously texting to gloat.

_Did you get any phone calls yet?_

She was going to kill him.

She had literally typed back, 'I am going to kill you.', but seeing it actually written down made her think better about it, and it brought back all sorts of bad memories and fine, okay, Rusty was only a child. She should be grateful that he was comfortable and carefree enough to be a child. A _ridiculous_ child, granted, but… he was allowed to have his moments.

She typed, 'We will discuss this when you get here.' instead, and hoped it sounded appropriately ominous.

Judging by the grinning emoticon he sent back in return, it did not.

Sharon let out a long sigh. Just a child, she reminded herself. She was going to cut him some slack. And her phone was all better now thanks to Buzz, so really, no harm done. So what if the FBI now thought she was some sort of nutcase? Who cared what the FBI thought, anyway.

* * *

"So are you like, really mad at me?"

He was giving her that searching look beneath his eyelashes, and Sharon had to forcefully remind herself of _quacking ringtone, for God's sake! _to muster some semblance of sternness.

But he did look so genuinely concerned...

She sighed again. "I'm not mad, no," she conceded quietly. "I… appreciate… that at your age, you might find practical jokes to be entertaining… and as long as you remember to be kind, and keep it safe, I will understand if you see today as a good opportunity to get... creative, in joking around with your friends. With _your friends_, Rusty," she emphasized, because now he was starting to look too reassured. "I am not one of them. So if you will _please_" she lowered her chin to give him a meaningful look, "refrain from trying your ideas on _me_."

"_Trying_? I mean, Sharon, I get it, but don't you mean 'succee –"

"Rusty."

He cleared his throat. "Okay." He nodded convincingly. "Okay, you're right. I'm sorry about your phone. "

Sharon offered him a little smile. He could be reasonable, when he wanted to. "Thank you." A glance at the clock read almost one p.m.; school had let out early that day because of a teacher's conference. "Why don't you try to get an early start on your homework?" she suggested.

"Oh – uh, okay, sure… do you mind if I work in here?" He swallowed and shrugged, and looked a little too invested in persuading her. "It's quieter than the cubicle, and there's like… better lighting."

She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, because 'better lighting', really?

Jack wouldn't have needed to give Rusty those ridiculous sunglasses to cheat him at poker. The boy was hopeless at all things that involved subtlety and dissimulation, anyway.

"I won't bother you," he added, and Sharon pondered whether his ulterior motives were anything to worry about, and decided that they weren't.

He probably just wanted to ask for something and hadn't worked his way up to it just yet. Or he was aiming to avoid talking to someone who might find him outside her office (probably Emma – had she upset him again lately?). Or it was even possible that he wanted to make sure that she really wasn't mad at him – he did that kind of awkward half-hovering thing sometimes, when he'd let his mouth run away with him and wasn't entirely ready to apologize but felt too bad to go off in a corner and sulk.

"Go ahead." She motioned to the little table in the corner, and his face lit up and he grinned and looked suspiciously happy about such a small thing. _Suspiciously_ happy. "Rusty." Sharon paused halfway to reaching for her pile of paperwork. "This better not be another attempt at a practical joke."

He leaned over the side of the chair to reach into his backpack, and when he came back up he was rolling his eyes. "Come on Sharon, what could I even do when you're like, sitting right there?"

She kept up the warning look for second.

"It's not!" Rusty swore.

* * *

It was.

The high-pitched noise came again, prolonged and impossibly shrill, and Sharon groaned and lowered her face in her hands.

She should've known.

Rusty hadn't been trying to be friendly, or make amends, no, he was just looking for a chance to be in her office so he could break _that_, too.

And she'd allowed it! She'd left him alone in the office without so much as a second thought! Oh, she'd thought she was being so smart taking her phone with her, just in case he got any more ideas… but no, it wasn't the phone he'd been after, it was –

Another strident beeping.

– _her sanity_.

Okay, he was grounded forever.

"It's called an Annoy-a-tron." Lt. Tao pulled his head back out from under the table that Rusty had worked at, and gave her a sympathetic grimace. "And I'm afraid I can't see it anywhere around here. It's really small, you see, and they build it so that you can't tell exactly where the sound is coming from…"

Sharon knew just fine where the sound was coming from. It was coming from hell.

"…but I think if we just get everyone in here and look, we should be able to find it in a few minutes…"

"That's alright, lieutenant, thank you." Her breath left her in an exasperated sigh. "There's no point in disrupting everyone. I'll just call Rusty and ask him where he hid it."

Rusty had left the building half hour previous, ostensibly to get a snack because he was hungry. He'd even offered to get her iced tea from the nearby coffee shop, and Sharon couldn't believe that she'd actually felt _appreciative_! That was, of course, before she'd sat back down at her desk and tried to get back to her work, only to be disrupted by the infernal eardrum-piercing beeping.

She'd tried to ignore it the first couple of times, thinking it would go away. But it kept repeating itself at random intervals, and after checking her phone and the desk phone and her computer and the fire alarm and the carbon monoxide detector and her watch, Sharon had thrown in the towel and called in the troops in the form of Lt. Tao. Who had listened to one instance of the shrill sound, then given her the most sympathetic look he could muster as he informed her of the likely culprit for her suffering eardrums.

Annoy-a-tron. How fitting. Where had Rusty even gotten that? He must've been planning this for longer than she'd thought! What, had he been sitting awake at night plotting? Should she be worri – oh dear gods, _that noise_!

"Kevin brought one of these home, once," Mike was shaking his head. "Kathy confiscated it the second she figured out what it was. And it was a great call…"

Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose.

She picked up the phone from her desk and dialed her foster son, and God help Rusty if on top of everything else he so much as _thought_ about not picking up, because that would've been _the last straw_ and she was going to –

He picked up.

"_Hi, Sharon_." And ugh, she could _hear_ him grinning from ear to ear.

* * *

" – and puerile, not to mention downright disobeying my direct instructions! You will _immediately_ cease any attempts to involve me in any of this, and in return I'm going to _consider_ not grounding you."

Rusty crossed his arms and let out a displeased huff. "You're being like, a really bad sport about all this," he informed her, to which Sharon could only respond by intensifying her glare. "It's _April Fools'_, Sharon, people are _supposed_ to prank each other! Like, everyone knows that, okay? Even like… Google is doing it!"

"Google isn't in my legal custody," she retorted dryly. "And I don't care what everyone else is doing. _You_ will stop trying to prank me and _behave_," she narrowed her eyes at him, "is that clear?"

There was much grumbling and eye rolling but in the end yes, it was clear. And she was still like, no fun. He was just going to go and get bored doing homework, while _literally everyone else in the world_ was enjoying pulling inane jokes on each other. He was so deprived. Woe.

Sharon rolled her eyes at his retreating, sulky form.

Then she bit her lips to keep from laughing.

* * *

At four p.m., it had been nearly two hours without further incident, and Sharon was feeling fairly confident that she'd curbed Rusty's hare-brained scheming. Maybe one day – long enough after this incident to make sure that he wouldn't consider giving it another shot – she'd tell him about her older kids' attempts to make April Fools' Day a thing in their household. If she felt particularly adventurous, she might even tell him the details of how said attempts had failed.

But not today. Today she was planning to enjoy the triumph of reason, for a change, and the fact that Rusty had apparently been sufficiently chastised by her lecture to stop trying to prank her. It was nice to know she could still scare a teenager into doing what she said.

Her walk to the break room was abruptly derailed by a loud crash from electronics, and Buzz's startled yelp.

The first indication that all was not well was opening the door to see Rusty standing in a corner, trying his best not to laugh, and Buzz picking himself up from floor, covered in film rolls.

Sharon looked from one to the other. "_What_ is going on here?"

Rusty was still doing his best (which wasn't very good) to suppress a grin. "Sorry, I didn't think it would – it wasn't –" (he was completely losing the battle to not laugh) " – apparently Buzz is like, really scared of spiders…"

"I'm not _scared_ of _spiders_," the civilian protested, disentangling himself from the rolls and assorted mess of electronic supplies on the floor, "I just don't usually expect to see tarantulas in the middle of my electronics room!" he finished with a glare in Rusty's direction, and – _what_?

Tarantulas?!

Sharon's eyes widened when she spotted a black ball of leggy fur in a corner, and even with advance warning she'd backed up two steps before realizing that it was all just another of Rusty's ideas and great, she'd told him to leave _her_ alone, and unwittingly sicced him on Buzz.

It was easy to summon her most severe mien. "What did I tell you about continuing these infantile pranks?"

He gave her a cautious look. "Uh, okay, _specifically,_" he replied, "you told me to stop doing it to you and start doing it to my friends. Buzz is my friend – aren't you, Buzz?"

"Not right _now_," the man grumbled.

Sharon closed her eyes briefly; technically, she had told Rusty _exactly_ that. He didn't need to look so victorious, though. "Go do your homework. In my office. Now. Wait," she stopped him, and turned to Buzz, who was still cleaning up the mess on the floor. "Do you need help with that?"

"_No_!" he said too quickly, glancing warily at the boy and gathering two of the rolls of film to his chest almost protectively. "Uh, no, I'm okay."

Her eyes cut back to her foster son. "Homework, then. Now. And Rusty – take _that_ with you," she pointed a finger to the hairy monstrosity in the corner, and gave him her best warning glare, "and it had better not make another appearance today. Or _any_ day. _Or_ night. I don't want to see it again, understood?" She was covering all loopholes, this time.

Rusty grinned, looking entirely too satisfied with himself.

* * *

Once the boy had left electronics, Sharon sighed and turned to Buzz. "I can help you," she offered. There really were an awful lot of … things, on the floor. He must've bumped into the rolling table and knocked everything down.

"That's alright, Captain," he waved her off, "it's not that bad. I just kind of… jumped… and tripped… but I don't think I damaged any of the equipment. Or…myself," he added as an afterthought.

Sharon shook her head.

"I'm not sure what's gotten into Rusty, with this whole April Fools' …nonsense."

Was it some sort of after effect of stress? A coping mechanism? Maybe she should have let him keep at it…? Or, more likely, he was just falling for the unnecessary mediatization of an even more unnecessary holiday, and if Twitter was saying that today had to be all about pulling ridiculous pranks on everyone around, then Rusty was behaving like any self-respecting teenager and following that trend to the best of his abilities.

Abilities which were not terrible, she had to admit. Sure, the tarantula had been fairly primitive and unrefined, and that infernal contraption in her office was the worst thing ever, but the alarm incident first thing in the morning, that was almost respectable, as far as infantile, ill-advised pranks went.

Which is to say, not very far. Her objective appreciation of his creativity aside, if Rusty didn't quit it, she _was_ going to have to ground him, and everyone was just going to end up upset by that.

Buzz was putting the last film roll back onto the table in the corner. "Well… it might be that he's been thinking about this since like, October."

_What_?

The man cleared his throat. "Rusty was really bored those few months with the security detail..." He grimaced a little warily. "I'm not sure, but I think one day I might've mentioned to him how my sister and I used to prank each other on April first…"

Great. Rusty had _literally_ been sitting up at night plotting.

And in nearly six months, it hadn't dawned on him that this was a spectacularly bad idea?

She was obviously failing in her duties to turn him into an adult.

* * *

**This can stand on its own as a oneshot, but I'm not marking it as 'Complete' because I have a second half mostly written (and I think you can all guess what it contains ;) ), which will prooobably be posted also, very soon? That is my current thinking, at least. Thank you for reading!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for all your comments :) **

**Here is the second and last part of Rusty and Sharon's April 1st misadventures, aka the part in which Rusty learns a lesson in consequences, and ****Sharon learns a lesson in vigilance**.  


**More Fool Me, pt. 2**

"I have four kids and six grandkids," Provenza said without looking up from his crossword puzzle. "Whatever it is, I've seen it before. "

Rusty paused in his tracks, momentarily deflated but not daunted. Okay, so Lt. Provenza would've probably been a bad idea anyway. He was kind of grumpy on the best of days.

The boy began to look around the murder room. Sharon always said to consider options, didn't she? Well, so _she_ was being the worst sport ever and making him leave her alone, but like, there were _options_. Right?

(and anyway, he'd already gotten her like, five times, which was probably why she was being all unreasonable about this.)

His eyes landed first on Det. Sanchez, who must've felt his gaze because he glanced up from his desk – and Rusty immediately looked away. No way. Uh-uh.

Lt. Tao seemed pretty relaxed… he'd have probably made a reasonable 'option', only half of Rusty's ideas were things that Kevin had suggested, so the lieutenant probably knew it all already. Hm. Det. Sykes? But Sykes could be a little scary, too, he'd learned. Plus, she and Lt. Flynn weren't even in the murder room at the moment, anyway. And Sharon _had_ kind of told him to leave the rest of the team alone, too, which was _totally unfair_, by the way, but…

It was then that Emma walked into the murder room, the clicking of her heels announcing her presence before she'd fully come into his line of sight.

Rusty smirked.

The DDA stopped near Lt. Flynn's unoccupied desk. "Where's Captain Raydor? There's a problem with your suspect's background, I need some more answers before I can present our deal agreement to a judge..."

The boy walked up to her. "Emma. We're friends, right?"

"What?" She frowned, confused.

"Like, you know how you said you'd like to try to get along better? Like, friends…?"

"Okay…? I mean, yes…" she was still giving him an odd look, but nodded. "Yes, Rusty… we're…friends. Sure…"

He grinned. "Okay, great. Thanks." He paused for a second, then adopted a solicitous mien: "So I was just gonna go get a soda. Would you like me to bring you one, too?"

At his desk, Provenza rolled his eyes.

* * *

On her way back from electronics, Sharon heard Emma's high-pitched shriek from the hallway, and let out an exasperated sigh.

* * *

Half an hour, one exploding soda can and a truly unhappy DDA later, Sharon had abandoned all hope that reason and parental authority would triumph over Rusty's supernatural determination to see his pranks through at all costs. (if only he could have shown this much dedication toward his schoolwork.)

" – left the rest of the team alone like you told me to, Sharon, but you didn't say anything about _Emma_." Rusty was arching his eyebrows at her. "You should like, be more specific about what you want."

"I was _extremely_ specific when I said 'be kind'," she retorted, "and persisting in your childish pranks at the expense of adults who are too _considerate_ to pay you back in similar fashion, is the exact opposite."

"Okay, how exactly is just joking around 'not kind'? I didn't actually do anything to anyone, and you should've seen your faces…" He grinned again at the memory, and looked at her almost pleadingly. "Come on, Sharon, I've been thinking about today for like, _months_, and I have about two hundred ideas and…"

Was he honestly asking her for permission to pull _more_ pranks?

Sharon shook her head. Sometimes her foster son was so smart and grown-up and one of the most admirable people she'd ever met in her life, and other times…

…well, other times he was pacing her office wearing splatters of exploded Diet Coke on his shirt, holding a hairy toy tarantula and asking if he could possibly please continue to play practical jokes at her expense, because it was April first and wasn't that like, the law or something?

" –like, seriously, Sharon."

She rolled her eyes. "This is your last warning," she told him emphatically.

Rusty paused, then, and cautiously inquired: "Last warning before what…?"

Sharon crossed her arms, leaning back in her seat. "Pull another prank and you'll find out."

And damn it, he looked like he was actually contemplating if it was worth it!

"Okay," he said after a moment, "can we negotiate a –"

"No."

"But like, if I can –"

"No."

"But Sharon, it's April –"

"Rusty." She leaned forward again and gave him her best warning look. "This isn't up for debate. No. More. Practical jokes, is that clear? No one's enjoying them as much as you are," she told him seriously, "they're disruptive to everyone's work, and frankly, this kind of thing inevitably ends up backfiring, and I'd much rather you quit it before that happens. Understood?"

Rusty let out the world's longest-suffering huff. "So basically, I'm not allowed to have any fun, like, ever," he grumbled.

"That's right," she agreed with a pleasant smile. "And to compound your suffering even further, you can go back to working on your homework. And _behave_."

At which point, there may have been some more words thrown around, such as 'abuse of authority' and 'childish decisions', and Rusty may have informed her again that it was poor sportsmanship to make him stop just because she fell for all his pranks (the nerve!), and Sharon may have in turned informed him that forever was a long time to be grounded.

Then he offered to get her a cup of coffee and what did he _think_, that she was born yesterday?

* * *

Apparently he did. Because despite her repeated warnings and instructions which left zero room for interpretation, he continued to make conspicuously helpful and harmless offers, and only grew more disgruntled as Sharon informed him that no, she didn't want another packet of sugar for her tea and no, he wasn't allowed to go ask Buzz for help with that problem and _no_, he couldn't go get a snack, either.

But dear God, he was unrelenting.

"Hey, Sharon...?" He rolled his eyes at the suspicious glare she shot in his direction. "I'm doing homework, okay? Look–" he pointed to the notebook in front of him with and arch expression, "_homework_!"

And fair enough, he was; she'd even checked what he was scribbling, and it was calculus. As opposed to say, a Wile E Coyote-like scheme, which also wouldn't have surprised her much at that point.

"What is it?" she asked eventually.

"Did you ever sign the permission slip for that day trip thing on Friday?"

Permission slip? What permission slip?

"You never gave me anything to sign." Her eyes narrowed even more suspiciously, but Rusty just shrugged.

"Oh... well, Sister Anna wants them tomorrow."

He was clearly not-saying more than he was saying, and seriously, worst poker face ever, but she couldn't tell _what_ he wasn't saying. Was he trying to get out of the day trip? Was this another scheme? What was he trying to make her sign?

She turned the little note he gave her on all sides, read every word carefully twice over and even held up the paper to the light to make sure there wasn't any invisible ink or something, while Rusty stood there rolling his eyes and smirking and did she want to test it for explosives too? She glowered warningly, because if he'd been less terrible today, she wouldn't _have_ to waste ten minutes making sure his permission slip wasn't booby-trapped!

"You're not gonna find anything, it's just a piece of paper, Sharon," he announced, but damn it, his words said one thing and his poorly-contained smirk, another. And he was enjoying himself way too much watching her overexamine the slip. "Do you want me to like, call Lt. Tao in, too? Have him dust it for prints or something? Or–"

"Don't tempt me," she muttered, and after one last glance at the untrustworthy piece of paper, she finally grabbed the pen from her desk.

Mistake.

* * *

Rusty's face threatened to split in half from his self-satisfied grin. "Told you the permission slip was just a piece of paper."

Sharon gave him her most threatening look, though the overall effect was probably hurt by her rapid shaking and wriggling of her fingers. Her hand was still tingling from the electric jolt that had shot through it when she'd clicked _the god. damn. pen_.

How had she not _noticed_ that it wasn't her own pen? How?

Her foster son was looking so goddamn proud of himself. "Misdirection," he nodded wisely. "Works every time."

* * *

"Sharon – the internet isn't working."

Over three hours had passed without further incident, before Rusty marched out into their living room, with an urgency worthy of the world ending. At least.

Sharon looked up from the thick case file she'd been studying, peering at him calmly above her glasses. "What do you mean, not working?"

"I mean, it's down… no connection. I can't get online. I'm going to check the router, maybe we need to reset it."

Frowning, Sharon checked the laptop that sat next to her on the sofa. "Mine seems to be working fine…" Her eyes narrowed. "Rusty, if this is another prank –"

"What – no! I'm serious."

"Step away from that router," she ordered immediately.

Rusty's shoulders slumped. "Sharon! This is serious. I can't connect to the wireless, okay?" He gave her a persuasive look. "Just let me see if I can fix it."

"There's nothing to fix," she told him. "I can connect just fine, so maybe it's your computer."

"It's not."

Sharon shot him one of her looks.

"Just let me try this," he pleaded, and finally she pursed her lips and waved him over to the router.

"This had better be a real problem," she warned.

Rusty rolled his eyes. "Honestly." After half a minute of fiddling with the router, he went back to his room, only to return five minutes later with his computer in his arms. "Nothing yet. Is yours still working?"

She glanced at the screen and clicked the mouse pad button once. "Yes."

"I don't get it. Why won't mine connect?" Standing in the middle of the living room, he entered some more commands on his laptop, then gave up with a frustrated groan. "It can't even find our network! Can you like, call the building manager and tell him we're having problems?"

Sharon lowered her case file. "_We_ aren't having problems," she corrected. "You are. And that means it's probably your computer, and I'm not going to call Mr. Jones at eight p.m. because of that. We can have Buzz take a look at it tomorrow."

"But – what am I supposed to do tonight? It's _the internet_, Sharon!"

She shot him another dry look, and pointedly picked up the case notes again, paying him no further attention.

After a few seconds of silence, Rusty let out a loud sigh, deposited his laptop on the table and curled up in an armchair, pulling out his phone.

Ten seconds later… "Sharon! My phone isn't working either!"

* * *

Unperturbed, Sharon glanced up again. "It's probably the same thing as your computer."

"What – that doesn't even make any sense! How would – that's – seriously, that's not possible."

She hummed thoughtfully. "Well, do you have them synced up to each other?"

For a moment, Rusty looked baffled. "Well – yeah, but…"

"There you go, then," she concluded. "It's probably something to do with that. I'm sure Buzz will be able to get to the bottom of it."

"Can we call him now?"

"_No_."

There was a little more protesting, but in the end Rusty agreed to wait until the next day; settling down once more in the armchair, he began to play some game on his phone that involved lots of screen-tapping and shaking. After a few minutes he shifted in his seat, tried the phone a little longer, went and got a glass of juice, then tried his computer again, then let out an endless sigh.

"Sharooon…"

"If you're bored," she told him without looking up from the file, "you could go clean your room. Or, there's laundry to be done, too."

He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and curled up deeper into the armchair. There was more playing with his phone, more screen-taping and shaking it from left to right and a lot of buzzing, until about ten minutes later came the telltale sound of "low battery". Sharon smiled at the page she was reading.

Rusty groaned.

After plugging in the phone to charge, he looked around the living room and paced a circle around the dining table. He picked up two schoolbooks from the coffee table and took them to his room, then came back, grabbed a shirt he'd left abandoned on the back of a chair and took that to his room too, and with that his cleaning efforts were exhausted. Sharon was still immersed in her work, and no amount of pointed sighing and foot-tapping and fidgeting was getting her to look up. Trying his computer again still yielded no internet.

He padded over to the far end of the sofa. "Do you mind if I turn on the TV? Since _nothing else_ is working?"

"Go ahead," said Sharon. "Keep the volume down please." She pulled her laptop and some of her papers closer so he could have more space, and Rusty plopped down, sending one of her pencils rolling between two cushions.

* * *

The first channel, when he turned on the TV, showed a documentary about old photography devices. The second one showed an infomercial about a special set of frying pans.

Third, fourth and fifth channels were news. Sixth was weather.

Then there were three consecutive black-and-white movies, one of which also had subtitles.

Rusty turned to Sharon, the beginnings of panic in his voice: "What's wrong with the TV?"

With a sigh, she lowered her case notes again, and glanced at the screen. "It looks to me like it's working fine," she remarked.

"I know but like… there's nothing _on_."

Sharon gave him a disbelieving look. "I don't control what airs on television, Rusty."

"But...where are all the movie channels?"

Her eyebrows arched.

"Seriously. They were like… I don't know, there were usually movies on, okay? Did you like, change the order of the channels or something?"

She rolled her eyes and glanced at the TV again. "This _is_ a movie," she told him. "Hm – 'The Apartment'… a very good comedy, in fact. It won the Academy Award for best picture, you know."

It was Rusty's turn to roll his eyes. "Really? _When, _the eighties?"

"1960."

He flipped the channel immediately without further comment.

The next thing up was a feature on environmentally-unfriendly mining procedures. After that, yet another impossibly old movie that looked all sepia-toned and grainy.

(Sharon, of course, hummed appreciatively: "That's another good one. 'The Conversation'… I think you'd enjoy it."

As if anyone in the world would ever enjoy an entire movie about a _conversation_. Sharon...)

"Where are all the _regular_ channels," he asked plaintively, "and why is there nothing _on_?"

"Perhaps tonight's programming is aimed at widening your horizons in the domain of cinematography," Sharon suggested with a hint of a smile.

"Yeah, in that case I think I like my horizons narrow…" Sighing from the very depths of his being, Rusty gave up on the TV and walked over to the table to try the computer yet again. Still to no avail. "If I just like, text Buzz –"

He trailed off at her sharp look.

Another heartfelt sigh, and then he moved on to the little cabinet underneath the TV. "Fine. I'm just gonna put on a DVD, okay?"

Sharon only gave a vague acknowledgment as she focused on the case notes once more. For a while, the only sounds were her pencil scribbling, and Rusty rummaging through DVDs. Then a couple of minutes in the boy let out a pathetic little noise, somewhere between a groan and a whine, that was enough to make her glance over again.

"Sharon…!" He sat cross-legged next to the pile of DVDs, looking at her with an almost beseeching expression. "The DVDs are all in the wrong cases!"

* * *

Sharon's response did not show anywhere near the appropriate amount of sympathy that Rusty would've expected, given his monumental plight:

"I told you that would happen if you don't put the movies back as soon as you're finished watching them."

Okay, well _that_ was just totally not useful at the moment.

"But like… how am I supposed to find anything to watch?"

She gave him another of her looks. "Rusty. There are three people in the LAPD morgue missing various limbs and organs. Would you like me to stop looking for their killers long enough to help you reorganize the DVD collection?"

A long beat, then: "Do you like, actually want me to answer that?"

"_No_." Sharon picked up the pencil again, readjusting the case file on her lap. "Just be patient and sort them back into their cases, and then you can pick one to watch."

His only response was a dissatisfied huff. He just kept going through the stack until he found the first DVD that was both something he'd watch, and in the right casing. "I'm gonna put on 'Transformers'," he informed Sharon.

He thought he saw her lips curl in a faint smile, but she didn't look up from her notes and all she said was, "Good choice", with an absent hum.

Rusty fiddled around with the TV and DVD player, moved the armchair a little for a better angle and got himself another glass of juice before sitting down. He clicked 'play' and used the first thirty seconds or so of the Paramount and Dreamworks intros to adjust the volume. Then he leaned back into his seat and settled in to watch.

_Avant le début des temps, il y avait le Cube._

* * *

Rusty's brow furrowed slightly, with a hint of puzzlement.

On the sofa, Sharon tried to keep her focus on her case notes, but her eyes kept drifting surreptitiously over to her foster son.

_Nous ne savons pas d'où il vient,_

His expression grew a little more confused.

_seulement qu'il a le pouvoir de créer des mondes et de les amener à la vie._

Rusty shook his head as though to clear water from his ears, and Sharon had to bite her lips and lower her head over the file again.

_C'est ainsi que notre race est née._

"What the… Sharon, are you hearing this? No hold on," he hurried to defend at her impatient look, "I'm serious, there's something like, wrong with the DVD. Listen…!"

She listened for the next few lines, then cocked her head at him. "Sounds fine to me."

"But – but… it's… don't you hear it? The sound is off! Do you think it's scratched?"

That surprised a choked sort of snicker out of her. "Rusty…"

For his part, the boy looked totally baffled as to how she was not getting it. He picked up the remote and fast forwarded to a different, random time.

_Mon Dieu…_

He scrolled forward again.

_Allez! Deplacez! Deplacez! _

And again.

_Mon nom est Optimus Prime. _

_Nous sommes organismes robotiques autonomes de la planète Cybertron._

He turned back to Sharon. "Seriously, does that sound like real words to you?" Not even waiting for her reply, he went on: "See? It's broken. _Now_ can we call Mr. Jones?"

"It's not broken, Rusty." There was laughter in her voice. "It's in French."

He stared at her.

Sharon returned an affectionate look, because she couldn't help herself.

Finally Rusty recovered enough to sputter out: "Why would it be in French?" He paused, his expression turning almost scandalized. "Who'd wanna watch giant robot aliens fighting _in French_?!"

Her lips twitched again, but she remained unruffled. "Well, if this isn't the movie you want, Rusty, why don't you just pick another one? And put this one _back in its case_," she added, "so as to avoid mixing them up even more."

He still wasn't done being baffled, though. "…Why would it be in French?"

Sharon shrugged, picking up her notes again. "Maybe they made a mistake at the store."

"But… it was fine before." The boy sounded uncertain now. "I swear, I watched this before, Sharon. I did, right?" He kept staring from the TV, to the pile of DVDs, to her. "It wasn't in French then…?"

Another absent shrug. "Maybe there's another copy somewhere. If you sort all the DVDs into their right cases, you might find it."

Rusty groaned miserably. He didn't _want_ to sort all the DVDs into their right cases, all he wanted was to have a quiet evening and his computer and why was that so much to ask for?!

He half-heartedly sorted three DVDs, yawning four times as he did so, and took his empty glass of juice to the sink to rinse it. He tried his computer again, checked his phone that was still charging impossibly slowly, and finally walked back over, planting himself in front of the sofa with another woeful groan.

"I just don't understand, Sharon, what is _wrong_ with everything tonight?" he whined. "Like_ literally. nothing._ is working right now. I don't get how that's even possible, I mean, it's like the universe _hates_ me all of a sudden or something!"

"I'm sure the universe doesn't hate you," she reassured without looking up from her work. "But if you're concerned about that," she suggested, "maybe the universe would feel kinder toward you if you finished sorting the DVDs and cleaning your room."

Rusty rolled his eyes, because what was she even talking about? "Okay, Sharon, I don't think the _universe_ cares about how clean my _room_ is..." Duh."Seriously, do you think we've got like, a poltergeist or something?"

She hummed noncommittally. "Probably not."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, it's difficult to be entirely certain about these things," she murmured while making a note on the margin of another page; the boy let out an exasperated sigh.

"I just don't get how _everything_ is broken _at the same time_," he grumbled, beginning to walk down the hall, "...doesn't even make any sense, like, how is this even happening..." He disappeared into his bedroom still muttering over his misfortunes.

Sharon nearly burst out laughing when she noticed his head poke out cautiously from the room about a minute later.

Even without looking up from her files, from the corner of her eye she could tell he was staring at her. After a few seconds, she craned her neck and looked over slowly, and his head immediately disappeared. She coughed quietly to herself.

About another minute later, his head poked out again, and this time the rest of him followed. He approached slowly, circling around the sofa at a fair distance. Half-wary, half-unconvinced. Sharon could feel her lips forming an amused smirk.

"Did you finish cleaning your room?" Her gaze was still on her case notes.

A pause, then: "...do I have to?" And this wasn't a whine, it was a genuine, cautious question.

She met his eyes again. Rusty was staring at her intently, eyes wide in anticipation of her response. There was a fair chance he was holding his breath. The seconds ticked by in tense silence.

She gave in. "Do you want your internet back?"

"_Oh my god_, Sharon!" He exploded into a sputter of shock. "I can't believe – you – you – I can't believe you _did_ that! I can't believe it's you! I – I – I – _Sharon_!"

* * *

"I can't believe you, Sharon."

It was possibly his tenth time saying it.

"_That_ was, like... like... I can't believe you did that!"

She laughed quietly into her cup of tea, eyes crinkling at the corners. "So I gather. I hope you realize," she said in a more serious tone, "that this wasn't about payback. I wanted to demonstrate just how ignoring people's warnings, believing in this illusion of invulnerability – that somehow you're exempt from the consequences of your actions," she explained, "can backfire."

"Yeah... also, you wanted payback," he smirked. He was sitting once again cross-legged on the floor, arranging DVDs back into their covers. "It's okay Sharon, I told you pranks can be fun. You can admit it."

"You are missing the point of this," she insisted.

"Right."

Sharon huffed, taking another dignified sip from her cup.

"You know what I don't get? Okay, so," he didn't even wait for a reply, "you made our wireless hidden and changed the password, and you canceled my data plan – you can undo that, right?" His train of thought was momentarily derailed by the need for her fifth reassurance that yes, she could undo it. "Okay, and you did change the order of the TV channels, _and_ swapped all the DVDs around while I was in the shower – and by the way," he gave her a dry look, "I don't see how it's fair that you're making _me_ sort them back now –"

She waved off his complaint without batting an eye, as he knew she would.

"But I don't get it, how did you know I was gonna pick 'Transformers'?! And how did you make it be like... in _French_?"

Sharon smirked, "A good magician," she commented, "never reveals their tricks."

That, however, was not to the boy's satisfaction. "Come on, Sharon!"

Her shoulders shook with silent laughter again. "Honey, you're not that hard to anticipate," she said warmly. "It was just a matter of taking a few other options off the table."

"And the French thing?!" He sorted the 'Titanic' DVD from the 'Alien vs. Predator' cover back into its own.

"That was Buzz." She smiled at his scandalized expression. "You shouldn't have pranked him with that tarantula. _Consequences_, Rusty," she reemphasized patiently, and he shot her another sideways glance.

"Yeah, okay, Sharon," he arched his eyebrows, "I'm pretty sure the 'lesson' part of this would've ended after like, the wireless thing. Or maybe the phone. The rest, though," he informed her with a grin, pulling 'Terminator' out of the 'Gone With the Wind' case, "that was totally payback and you were having fun and you _know_ it."

"I told you, Rusty, payback had nothing to do with it," she countered. "It was an educational experience, designed to teach you about the consequences of your actions."

His grin widened. "Yeah, I'm sure that's true and you didn't go through all this effort because it was _fun_ or anything," he snickered, "but just FYI, like, half my friends at school pulled pranks at home, and I bet you none of _their_ parents actually pranked them back to 'educate' them, so..."

He trailed off, freezing with his hands around the 'Terminator' cover.

Sharon lowered her face over her cup of tea again, taking a long sip.

"It was _a little_ fun," she admitted after a few seconds, in a quiet voice.

Rusty looked away, closing the DVD case and putting it back in the cabinet, reaching for the next one. There were another few moments of silence, then he let out a long sigh.

"I still can't believe you did all that just to get back at me," he informed her.

"_Educate_ you. Note the difference." She tilted her head, smiled a little.

He rolled his eyes and finished arranging the last DVD case neatly in its place, but the corners of his lips were also pulling upward in a hint of a smirk.

* * *

**Thank you for reading!  
**


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